What reading stage should a 6 year old be on


Which reading stage is your child in?

Learning to read fluently is a process that can take several years to complete. Children progress through four stages on the road to reading: pre-reader, beginning reader, intermediate reader, and advanced reader. While most kids learn to read between kindergarten and 2nd grade, there’s no set timetable. Some children develop the skill faster or slower than others. In this article, you'll learn more about the four reading stages and how your child will learn to unlock the meaning of letters and words to  understand what's written on the page and screen.

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Learning to read is a process that can take years, and although each child learns at his own pace, most progress through four basic reading stages. Review the following descriptions to find out which stage of reading your child is in and how to help your child strengthen reading skills at each step along the way.

Signs of a Pre-Reader: Ages 2 to 4

Your child is probably a pre-reader (also called a pre-emergent reader) if he does most of the following:

  • Plays with books as toys but doesn't yet understand that they contain stories
  • Has been exposed to books and enjoys hearing them, but doesn't yet comprehend that the pages contain words that correspond to a story
  • Is attracted to the bright colors and illustrations found in books, but doesn't understand that the pictures depict a story
  • Can't identify any words or letters on the pages, though may seem interested in learning the names of letters
  • Pretends to write with a pencil or pen
  • Enjoys looking through books and magazines on his own

Most preschoolers are in the pre-reading stage. 

How to help: Share books and more books with your child. Best bets are those that feature rhyming and word patterns, vivid illustrations, and stories you loved as a child. For more suggestions on what to read, see BabyCenter's advice on choosing books for your pre-reader.

Signs of a Beginning Reader: Ages 4 to 6

Your child is probably a beginning reader (also known as an emerging reader) if she does most of the following:

  • Needs pictures on each page to help tell the story
  • Can name the letters in the alphabet and knows many of the letter sounds
  • Memorizes books and tries to read them again and again
  • Reads aloud unexpressively and doesn't stop for punctuation
  • Comes across an unknown word and is able to sound out the beginning, but then makes up the rest or skips over it

Many kindergartners can be at this level of reading, with one of their key skills being the ability to distinguish between the sounds letters make. Having this "ear" for letters will help kids accelerate their path to reading. 

How to help: Reading along with your preschooler can be a huge boost to their reading progress. Talking to your child about the pictures, pointing to words as you read them, and reading everywhere you go (road signs, store signs, etc.) are just a few of the ways to help your beginning reader move to the next level.

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Signs of an Intermediate Reader: Ages 6 to 8

Your child is probably an intermediate reader (also known as a developing reader) if he does most of the following:

  • Reads smoothly most of the time with few mistakes, but sometimes stops to sound out words
  • Uses pictures as well as context clues from the rest of the sentence to figure out the meaning of a story
  • Comes across an unknown word, sounds it out, and can usually figure out the meaning based on context
  • Can answer simple questions about the story
  • Reads aloud expressively sometimes and pauses for most punctuation
  • Enjoys new books, reading easier ones independently and more difficult ones with the help of an older child or adult

By the time many children enter 1st grade (usually between 6 and 7 years old), they're able to "decode" what they see on the page. Children in the intermediate stage of reading can pair letters with sounds and match up spoken words with their written counterparts.

How to help: At this stage, the most important thing you can do is give your budding reader freedom to blossom. Allow your child to pick out their own books, read on their own, and read no anywhere they want (within reason). Children in the intermediate reading stage need as much independent reading practice as they can get. The best way to encourage more reading is to let them read whatever they want so they enjoy it. Above all, skip making reading an "assignment." For more advice on how to unleash your child's inner bookworm, see tips on helping your intermediate reader become a fluent reader. 

Signs of an Advanced Reader: Age 8 and up

Your child is probably an advanced reader (also known as a fluent reader) if she does most of the following:

  • Reads smoothly with few, if any, breaks
  • Reads chapter books and can fully comprehend most or all of the story
  • Enjoys books without pictures
  • Looks up an unknown word, or asks the meaning of the word and usually remembers it the next time she sees the word
  • Can answer questions about the material and share feelings and thoughts about the story
  • Reads aloud expressively throughout, with a full understanding of punctuation and rhythm
  • Reads chapter books and shows interest in longer, more detailed stories

Many children hit their reading stride during the 2nd grade. At this point, they no longer have to carefully sound out each word. Reading becomes more automatic and they can shift their energy to enjoying the meaning of what they're reading. 

How to help: Playing to your child's learning style and sparking their creativity can help cement advanced reading skills. For physical learners, create a family newspaper or make your own bookmarks. For auditory learners, seek out story time online and off or have them read to someone (sharing a book with the grandparents or even a beloved pet can work out well). And for visual learners, create a photo scrapbook and write captions describing what is happening in the photos to reinforce associations between imagery and story. Get more tips on helping an advanced reader. 

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Is your child ready for reading? The HOMER app will create a personalized learn-to-read plan based on your child's skill level and interests. It's a fun, interactive reading program developed by literacy experts. BabyCenter parents get the first month free (and, depending on the program you choose, up to 4 months free).

Nancy Montgomery

Nancy Montgomery is a health and wellness writer and editor. She lives with her husband in Berkeley, California, and has an adult daughter. She especially enjoys working on safety-related content, and organizing and presenting important information in a way that's easily accessible to parents.

6 Year Old Reading Level

When you held your baby, you read her lots of books. All throughout her life, you showed her the value of literacy. You took her to the library often and let her flip through the board books. You held her and read some of your read-aloud favorites like Jan Bret, Mercy Mayer and Richard Scarry.—all the while indulging in and explaining the silly, fun pictures. When your daughter started Kindergarten, you expected her to do well in reading. As she turns 6, you realize that other kids are reading and she isn’t. You begin to wonder: what is a 6 year old reading level?

What is a 6 year old reading level in early kindergarten?

A 6 year old reading level is broad. However, in general, at the age of 6, most kids are starting to string letter sounds together to read short vowel words. In order to read short vowel words, a 6 year old needs to hold continuous sounds like “mmmm” and clip stop sounds like “b.” This means, she doesn’t add “uh” at the end of stop sounds. She doesn’t say “buh” or “duh”…etc. It also means that she’ll read a word like “mad” as “mmmaaad.” The fact that she holds continuous sounds and clips sounds allows her to arrive at the correct pronunciation.

If a Kindergartner has mastered the basics of letter sounds, she can begin reading short vowel books. What is a short vowel book? Here’s a sample of what a short vowel text:

Mex the Rex has a pet rat. Pet the Rex has a pet bat. They have a lot of fun.

Our printable phonics books help kids learn to read with a gradual, step-by-step approach.

Notice that almost the entire passage is decodable, meaning she can read the words sound-by-sound. There are some common sight words in the passage as well, like “they,” “have,” “of” and “the.

Reading involves mapping sounds to phonetic codes

Bottom-up strategies involve decoding or linking phonetic codes to sound. Top-down strategies involve applying your unique background knowledge, family history, experience, vocabulary…etc. to what you read. While reading requires both top-down and bottom-up strategies, early readers need to actually learn to read the words! If a child never learns to read the words, they cannot ever apply top-down strategies. Only bottom-up strategies (like sound-by-sound reading, phonics sounds and phonemic awareness) give kids access to the words. A 6 year old reading level depends on her access to the phonetic code, not on how many books you’ve read to her.

Reading aloud to your child, while obviously important, does not develop bottom-up reading strategies

When you read books to your child, you were building her top-down strategies, not her bottom-up strategies. You were building her knowledge of the world. You weren’t teaching her to map codes to sound. Of course you didn’t teach the phonetic code: that’s the school’s responsibility. Early readers need to have access to what the story actually says in order to comprehend the story and relate to its theme. When you have a struggling reader, your time is best spent focusing on her sound-by-sound reading strategies so she can actually read the words! Teach bottom-up strategies.

What is a 6 year old reading level in late Kindergarten?

Toward the end of Kindergarten, she can then start acquiring consonant digraphs. There are many consonant digraphs, but some of them are not common enough to teach. Focus on common consonant digraphs like sh, th, ch/_tch, and _ng. Consonant digraphs are chunks of letters that make one sound. At this point, a 6 year old reading level consists of short vowels and consonant digraphs. Here’s a sample of a consonant digraph text:

Shell had a fish shop. She shut the shop. She had to dash to the ship.

Notice that the text doesn’t overwhelm the student with every “sh” word. For example, words like shepherd, bashful, banish, shark, shadow…etc. are left out. Although “sh” is in a lot of words, a 6 year old reading level will limit words to short vowels.

Lastly, a 6 year old reading level incorporates long vowels

Once a child is at the end of Kindergarten or beginning of first grade, she begins learning long vowels. There are many long vowels. Some long vowels include “ee” as in “sheep,” “ai” as in “rain” and “igh” as in “night.” At this point, a 6 year old reading level looks like the following:

On a hot day, Sherry went on a train ride. The train rode along the coast. In the water, whales swam up to take a peek at the train. Then, the train went up the hill through the trees.

The above excerpt shows that in first grade, a 6 year old reading level incorporates many word types. A 6 year old reading level includes short vowels, consonant digraphs, long vowels and sight words.

6 year old reading level passages become more complex

A 6 year old reading level can vary tremendously. From Kindergarten to first grade, kids acquire many new sound units. Be sure to find a passage your child can read successfully. At the beginning, texts should only include 3-letter short vowel words. Next, texts should include 3-4 letter short vowel and consonant digraph words. Finally, long vowels are incorporated.

I’m very excited that Reading Elephant will soon offer consonant digraph books. Reading Elephant currently only has short vowel books available. However, in just a few weeks, I’ll offer consonant digraph books.

How to teach a child to read well at 5-6 years old

Every loving parent wishes a better future for his son or daughter. This applies not only to adulthood, but also to school age, so parents often think about how to teach a child to read quickly at the age of 5-6. Literacy is the basis for starting school, and despite the fact that officially a first grader should not be able to read, many adults think about preparation. But where and how can a child be taught to read before entering first grade?

How to start learning to read

School years are a wonderful time when a child gains knowledge in various subjects and spends a lot of time with peers. But in order for him to study easily, he needs to devote a lot of time to training his skills, the main of which can rightly be called the ability to read.

Every person learns to read and write from an early age. Some children learn letters before school, others learn to read in the first grade. The opinion of parents on whether it is worth preparing for studies in advance varies: some insist that the child needs to be prepared as early as possible for admission to the first grade, while others believe that this is a waste of time, because everything is taught at school anyway . Which of these approaches to education is the only correct one?

To answer this question, it is necessary to study in detail the characteristics of the intelligence of children at different ages. Until the age of five, the baby has a more developed right hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for creativity, fantasy, and emotions. It is difficult for him to memorize and recognize letters, numbers and other symbols. Therefore, it is not recommended to force a child to learn the alphabet during these years, but this does not mean that acquaintance with books will have to be postponed for a long time.

Parents should read fairy tales and stories aloud to their children as often as possible, because this contributes to the development of a love of literature. If from the earliest years to show the child that reading is a very interesting and entertaining process, then the study of letters in the future will occur with great enthusiasm.

After five years, the child's intellect is rebuilt. You can see how the son or daughter has become more diligent, focused, attentive to details. The left hemisphere of the child's brain, responsible for logic, memorization and analysis, is making a big leap in development. That is why it is better to teach a child to read not earlier than 5-6 years old, because at a younger age, study is much more difficult and tires the fragile child's psyche too much.

But not only age-related features affect the optimal time to start learning to read. It must be remembered that each child is individual and develops at his own pace. That is why it is important to rely not only on age, but also on signs of readiness to get acquainted with letters:

  • ability to concentrate. The parent should pay attention to how the child manages to cope with painstaking and demanding tasks, such as modeling and drawing. In order to learn to read, the baby must be diligent enough.
  • fluency in oral speech. Before you start learning letters, you need to develop the ability to clearly and logically express yourself. The kid should be able to conduct a conversation, make up a short oral story of several sentences.
  • degree of memory development. Reading involves not only the reproduction of the text, but also its memorization. It is important to ensure that the baby can briefly retell a previously heard fairy tale or events that happened to him on a walk or in kindergarten. It is possible and necessary to train memory, in contrast to the study of letters, even before the age of five.

It is important to consider both the age of the baby and the above recommendations. Only then can we talk about complete readiness for classes. But what is the best way to teach a child to read at 5, 6 or 7 years old?

Learning letters

How does learning to read and write begin? Someone will say that with a letter, but this is not entirely true. Long before the baby learns to read the simplest words and syllables, it is important to work out and consolidate the sound stage of learning well. To do this, you need to show the child with examples how any word can be divided into sounds. If this is not done, then later, when the baby begins to study in elementary school, it will be more difficult for him to give a phonetic analysis of the word, and the transition to fluent reading will take more time than for trained classmates.

You should start with simple words: m-a-m-a, p-a-p-a, k-o-sh-k-a, s-o-b-a-k-a. At this stage, it is important to clearly pronounce consonants, highlighting them with your voice, and vowels need to be pulled. So the child, while not yet realizing the difference between a vowel and a consonant, will learn to distinguish them intuitively. Gradually moving on to longer words, wait for the moment when the analysis into sounds will be given without difficulty. Then you can move on to the study of letters.

Most parents use for this purpose familiar to everyone since childhood, the manual - the alphabet. Leafing through it, the baby, with the help of adults, gradually remembers the letters and the sounds corresponding to them. The advantage of this method is that the child develops his associative thinking, compares the first sound and letter of the word with the picture from the book.

Blocks with letters perform a similar function. The kid examines them, shifts them from place to place, plays and, at the same time, learns. Over time, he will remember all the letters, but for this, parents will have to make a lot of effort.

The problem of independent study of the alphabet is that adults must control the regularity of such studies. If you do not repeat and reinforce the material already covered in a timely manner, training can stretch for an indefinite period. But getting to know the letters is only the beginning. Only when the baby has mastered this stage perfectly, you can proceed to reading by syllables.

Learning to read by syllables

The syllable period of learning is the most important stage in the formation of skills. The literacy of the student will largely depend on how successfully it passes and consolidates, namely the ability to transfer the word to the next line and the absence of the most common mistake of schoolchildren - skipping a letter due to inattention. That is why it is necessary to approach syllabic reading in detail.

Today, parents have a lot of helpers, but the most useful are the primer and blocks, in which the letters are already combined into syllables. First, it is better to study open syllables: ma-ma, ru-ka, no-ga, do-ma. Later, you can move on to closed syllables, but you should start with simple words: house, dream, bow, cat. There is no need to force the baby to read words with a large number of letters in a rhinestone, let him first master and consolidate his skills on the simplest examples.

When syllabic reading is mastered, you can begin to reproduce the whole words. This stage is most often difficult for parents. Children who are accustomed to breaking a word into syllables are required to read it in its entirety, without hesitation or pauses. Only practice helps to learn this. Offer to get acquainted with a small text several times in a row, and then the children will begin to more fluently read the words they already know, and gradually their skills will improve.

It is necessary to pay attention to how well a son or daughter manages to remember and understand what they read. Explain to them that the purpose of getting acquainted with any textual material is the assimilation of new knowledge, and not just a thoughtless reproduction of what they have read. Only when the child reads quickly and understands the text well, we can talk about a sufficient level of development of his skills. It is important to follow this if parents prefer to work with their child at home.

Learning to read at home

The main task of teaching is not only to master the letters, but also to accustom the child to books. To do this, do not rush the baby, scold him for his mistakes. It is important to remember that preschool is an opportunity to have fun and play, and only then a huge space for developing skills. Try to interest your child in reading books together, tasks in the form of games, and then learning will become much easier for him.

Make sure your child is ready to start learning to read. It happens that at five, six or even seven years old, it is difficult for him to do the exercises and practice. In this case, you need to change the approach, try to find a program that is exactly right for your son or daughter. All children are individuals and develop at their own pace. Forcing them to study through force, the parent only repels them from the educational process.

Knowing all these rules, it may seem that you can teach a child to read even at home and without much difficulty. But this is not entirely true, because a parent may encounter several difficulties that are not obvious at first glance, which will directly affect the child's progress at school: It is important to take into account all the recommendations of teachers and psychologists, and start exercising only when the baby is ready for this.

  • An important role is also played by how pedagogically an adult behaves during classes. You can not force a child to study, as this kills any interest in learning in him. It is better to try to interest, encourage for successes and achievements, being patient with mistakes and blunders.
  • If you do not consolidate the material from any stage of education in a timely manner, then in the future the child may encounter difficulties. Retraining to read correctly is always more difficult than learning from scratch, and parents should remember this. Therefore, it is important to study according to a specific program, and not spontaneously.
  • Despite the fact that there is a lot of information in open sources on the Internet about how to teach a child to read quickly at home, moms and dads do not always manage to find the right and consistent training program. But I want the kid to know the letters well and go to the first grade prepared. Therefore, many adults prefer to send their child to preparatory courses in school or in centers for additional children's education. But what activities are best for preschoolers?

    Where is the best place to study - choosing a center

    Today, most schools hold preparatory classes for first graders. On them, students get acquainted with letters and numbers, learn to follow the rules of behavior in the classroom. But due to the fact that such courses are more of a general educational nature, it cannot be said that the child will make significant progress in mastering reading skills. Therefore, it is better to teach the baby to read in children's centers, where highly specialized classes are held, aimed at the result. But which courses are best for five and six year olds?

    First of all, you should pay attention to the teaching methods. It depends on the program how quickly the baby learns letters and sounds, learns to read syllables and whole words. It is important to remember that the purpose of such classes is a gradual transition to fluent reading - the ability to quickly read words and sentences. Therefore, you need to choose a proven methodology that has proven its effectiveness on the examples of many other students. Carefully study the reviews about certain courses, and only then make a decision to enroll your child in them.

    It is important to remember that the main form of interaction between babies and the outside world is play. When classes are held in a playful way, it is possible to explain the material to students faster and better and consolidate it with high quality. In addition, this type of training contributes to better motivation to gain knowledge. The child will be happy to attend those classes in which he is fun and interesting. It is worth considering this factor when choosing an educational institution.

    At school, the student will be forced to study more independently. The teacher physically cannot pay attention to each child during the lesson. That is why it is so important to prepare for the first grade in advance so that the baby can easily cope with the academic load from the first days. Preschool education has different standards, and therefore it is better to choose those courses where classes are held in small groups. It is very important that the coach has time to pay attention to each student in a timely manner. So work on shortcomings and errors will proceed faster and more productively.

    Knowing these signs of a good course, you can easily choose useful reading classes for children over 5 years old. Thanks to them, the baby will learn to read letters and syllables well, to put words and whole sentences out of them. Such training will be an excellent basis for studying at school. When the student easily and freely manages to get acquainted with the text, the learning process no longer seems so difficult.

    When is it time to teach a child to read and how best to do it: a review of methods - Parents.ru

    Development

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    Getty images/Westendend61

    Sleep teacher

    Methodist of the Baby Club Early Development Center

    Teacher of Montessori Group

    Why and when to study, read

    ,

    in Russia, as well as in Russia, as well as in Russian most countries of the world, the standard program of the 1st grade includes the development of reading skills. But by default, it is believed that by this age the child should already be able to read, and parents tend to develop these skills earlier. Ekaterina Tupitsina, a teacher, suggests that before starting classes, determine their goal: “Often, parents think not so much about the needs of the child as about their own ambitions, so first of all you need to decide whether reading and writing is really necessary for a child at a particular age. If parents see that without these skills, his development is hindered: he loves books, strives for new knowledge, wants to write and express himself, you need to help him. But at the same time, it is important to take into account the peculiarities of the physical and social and personal development of the child.

    • From birth to 6 years old in a child, in a certain sequence, the parts of the brain that are responsible for the perception of information from the outside world, its processing, analysis and feedback (for example: we hear a sound - analyze it - remember the image of a letter - write).

    • At the age of 1.5−4 years the child actively communicates, develops conversational speech, as well as the ability to distinguish the sounds of the language. This is the basis of competent listening comprehension (including spelling and punctuation). In parallel, fine motor skills develop - the ability to hold a pencil and a pen and easily "manage" them. All this determines readiness for writing.

    • At the age of 3.5-4.5 years the child develops an interest in writing. He leaves signatures under the drawings, first in the form of scribbles, and then, in order to make his inscriptions understandable to other people, he strives to master the letters of his native language.

    • At the age of 5-7 years, develops the ability to analyze and generalize symbolic information (letters) and translate it into specific images (sounds and words). At the same age, the child begins to be more interested in the lives of other people, their opinion, wants to know what is written by them. All this provides the need for reading and readiness for it.

    It is important that early learning to read and write does not interfere with other developmental games and activities. The technique should be suitable for the child by age and be sure to be exciting and interesting to him.

    In addition, according to the teacher-speech therapist Tatyana Kupriyanova, it is necessary to start teaching a child letters when he has mastered sound analysis. First you need to learn to clearly distinguish sounds, not to confuse them, to pronounce them correctly.

    Both parents and teachers in kindergartens should draw his attention to the sound of words, read poetry, pronounce tongue twisters, ask questions: for example, what sound do you hear at the beginning of the word “mother”, what at the end, etc. At 3− 4 years old children are more interested in the sound side of speech, they experiment with sounds, come up with their own combinations, new words. After that, by the age of 5, he begins to be interested in the letter designations of sounds and he can naturally move on to reading.

    If you teach a child to read at an age when he still does not speak very well, pronounces many sounds incorrectly, does not distinguish them by ear, this can lead to dyslexia - reading disorders, and subsequently to dysgraphia (writing disorders). The fact is that initially he will incorrectly associate letters with their sound counterparts: for example, in the word “track”, instead of “g”, he hears and pronounces “s”, and this is how he will read this letter, confuse it in words.

    Important tips

    • Tell stories to the child and with him: pause so that the baby can insert a familiar word himself.

    • Tell your baby about what he sees around: make simple sentences, later stories. Invite others to tell about what he saw, what happened to him.

    • Sculpt, play finger games, puzzle, string beads, play with grains and water. The development of fine motor skills will help the child quickly master the letter.

    • Draw children's attention to the letters everywhere: on the street, in your favorite book, on the TV screen, in their names and the names of loved ones.

    • Develop imagination: discuss what (or who) this or that letter looks like, and draw an image letter: the letter B is like a kangaroo with a bag for a cub, F is like a snowflake, C is like an elephant's ear.

    • Play games with letters and syllables. For example, in a store, an adult calls the first syllable in a word (MA), and a child must find a product in which this syllable comes first (Pasta). If your child likes to look at his photos, offer to come up with a one-word name for each (beach, park, football, etc.). Write the words on the cards and have your child arrange them under the corresponding pictures.

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    Getty Images/Westend61

    Sound method

    Until the middle of the 19th century, Russians were taught to read using the laborious letter-subjunctive method. First, the children memorized all the letters: az, beeches, lead, etc., then they crammed the syllables (beeches and az - “ba”), and only then did they start reading. This could take a long time, sometimes up to two years.

    In contrast to the literal subjunctive method, teacher K. D. Ushinsky proposed to introduce the sound method of teaching literacy in schools. There is no need to memorize the names of letters, learning began with the selection of individual sounds from words, from which words are then formed. The teacher pronounced the sound, then showed how the corresponding letter was written. First, a simple vowel was taught (for example, "y"), and then a consonant was added (for example, "s"). The child was taught to draw a vowel sound and add a consonant to it. Then they read the syllable, where the consonant was the first, and the vowel was the second. To one syllable was added another, got the word. In general, according to this principle, education is conducted in the first grades to this day. It is used in primers, constantly refined and improved. The sound method is in good agreement with the structure of the Russian language - most words are read as they are written, there are few reading rules in Russian (unlike English or French).

    Sound method step by step:

    1. Introduction to sounds and letters: the child learns to distinguish different sounds in words, learns that sounds are hard and soft, vowels and consonants, deaf and voiced and that each sound has its own designation - letter.

    2. Merging sounds into syllables: the child puts “m” and “a” into MA, etc. First, syllables of two sounds come, then three or four, a soft and hard sign appears in them, several consonants go in a row or vowels.

    3. Composing words from syllables: the child first puts together short words, and then more and more complex ones, gradually moves on to reading sentences and texts.

    Method advantages: abundance of benefits, parents do not need special training to conduct classes. It is better to start targeted training using this method not earlier than 4-5 years old, because the child must understand the difference between deaf and voiced, soft and hard sounds, etc. Cons of the sound method: having learned to read in syllables, the child will read slowly mistakes. Perceiving the word in parts, children often do not understand the meaning of what they read (therefore, it is imperative to ask the child to say the whole word). The younger the child, the longer it will take to start reading cleanly.

    Tatyana Kupriyanova, a speech pathologist, comments: “For teaching children at an early age, it is better to choose a speech therapy primer (authors Zhukova, Novotortseva). In them, letters are studied in a sequence that depends on the ease of pronouncing the corresponding sounds: first, the child gets acquainted with the designation of those sounds that he can accurately pronounce (simple vowels: a, o, y, etc.), and then with more complex ones. In school primers, the order of learning letters depends on the frequency of their use in Russian, and for a preschooler it can be difficult.

    The method of whole words

    The method, fundamentally opposite to sound, is known in Russia as the method of Glenn Doman. Doman created a system of physical rehabilitation, as well as the general development of intelligence, learning to count and read for children with disabilities, which later began to be applied to ordinary children.

    The kid is asked to memorize whole words at once, which are written on a separate card in large red letters. According to Doman, having seen the word several times and hearing how it is pronounced, the child remembers it, and having learned a sufficient number of new words, he begins to read. Parents make cards and show them to the child several times a day, and you can start such classes from the first year of life. But kids are little interested in monotonous cards, and parents get tired of constantly making new ones. Or the child does not perceive words if they are not written on a card, but simply on a piece of paper with a pencil or printed in a book.

    In addition, the technique was developed for the English language: it has complex reading rules and many short words that are easy to remember. The Russian language is arranged differently: the vast majority of words are pronounced the way they are written, and knowing the letters and sounds (or warehouses), you can read any new word without memorizing how it looks. In addition, words change in Russian, and memorizing, for example, the simple verb “is” in all its forms will be very laborious: I eat, you eat, he eats, etc. Therefore, experts recommend using such material as an addition to other classes on the development of speech and reading. Speech therapist teacher Tatyana Kupriyanova comments: “Doman's cards are effective for children with speech developmental disabilities: it is difficult for them to recognize the connection between sound and letter, and for them memorizing whole words is the key to starting reading. For ordinary children, cards can help develop visual memory, but they can’t teach them to fully read. If the goal is to make the child recognize individual words, captions under pictures, the technique will work, but the child can switch to conscious reading of new words only by learning to correlate letters with the sounds of his native speech. If the child remembers a lot of words from the cards, this will help him in the future to read faster those words that he already knows, but nothing more.

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    The Montessori method

    Montessori group teacher Irina Gorbatko says: “The main differences of the Montessori method are a holistic approach to development, compliance with the natural needs of a child of each age, active use of fine motor skills and sensory perception. And unlike other methods, there is a completely different order of mastering skills: first, children learn to write letters, words, and even whole stories, and only then - to read. Learning to read according to the Montessori method is not a set of highly specialized manuals that are designed exclusively for teaching literacy, but a whole system of activities and games that gradually develop the child’s intellectual and motor abilities, preparing him for the emergence of writing and reading skills. The main idea of ​​Montessori is that there is a time for everything: there is a natural period for the development of any skill, and if you impose something that is not interesting to him at the moment, there will be no result or the child will not use the skill. So, at about the age of 3.5-4 years, children accumulate a large vocabulary, are able to express thoughts with the help of words, achieve their goals (ask other children to do something, negotiate). Children of this age begin to be keenly interested in the symbolic designation of sounds - letters. They like to name sounds, play with letters, circle them, draw (after all, a letter is the same drawing). If this interest is maintained, at the age of 4-5 years, the child begins to spontaneously write single words and whole sentences. And by the age of 5, he learns to read without coercion, with interest, following the natural logic of speech development. The child writes to express his thoughts, and begins to read when he is able and willing to perceive the thoughts of another.

    Montessori Reading:

    1. Sound games. A box with compartments contains small items that have a certain sound in their name. Each cell has a letter representing that sound. The teacher shows the objects and pronounces them, focusing on the desired sound. Thus, the child learns to isolate the sound at the beginning, in the middle, at the end of the word and subconsciously correlates it with the letter on the cell.

    2. Preparing the hand for writing. Using special frames for preparing for writing and hatching, the child guides the pens through the slots, performing various movements containing letter elements. Exercises teach to correlate the movement of the hand and the eye, strengthen the fingers and make the child's hand more mobile.

    3. Work with letters. One of the key benefits is "rough letters". These are letters made of rough material (like sandpaper). "Rough" letters are written because it is assumed that smooth circular motions are more accessible to children. The child remembers the alphabet better when tactile sensations are involved.

    Training is carried out in a three-stage lesson. First, a presentation: an adult lays out a tablet, calls the sound (that is, not the letter “em”, but the sound “m”) and traces the outline of the letter with his finger. Gives the tablet to the child and invites him to circle the letter, naming it again. In one lesson, three letters are shown, in the next two already familiar and one or two new ones. At the second stage, the assimilation of information takes place: the adult asks one by one to show the letters or perform simple actions with them (put one letter on the edge of the table, take the second one for yourself or give it to another, etc.). If the second step is passed easily, we go to the third, if the child does not remember, we return him to the first step. The third stage is the verification and automation of knowledge. "What is it?" The teacher asks to name all three letters in turn, in order and randomly. After such a mini-lesson, the child is invited to repeat familiar letters on their own or try to depict them with their fingers on a tray of semolina. Also, letters can be laid out from sticks or plasticine sausages. After some time, you can complicate the game - blindfold the child and offer to guess the letter by touch. It is even more difficult to put together a word from “rough” letters blindfolded.

    • Letter. The next stage - the child himself, when he is ready for this, begins to write letters with his finger on the semolina, with a stick on the sand, and then with a pencil on paper. Many children, in the words of Maria Montessori, have a real “explosion of writing”.

    • Composing words from the movable alphabet. Lowercase and uppercase letters, similar to "rough" letters, are placed in the cells of a wooden box. The teacher helps to match the letters in the mobile alphabet (also gradually, three or four letters at a time). Then he shows how they can be combined into syllables and words.

    • Reading. The actual reading begins with a series of cards. Each card has a word and a picture representing the word. Depending on the level of difficulty, they are marked with a certain color. Pink - each letter in the word is pronounced as it is written. Green - words with iotized vowels after the consonant are added. Blue - difficulties in reading are introduced: unstressed vowels, unpronounceable consonants in the root, stunned consonants, b and b at the end of a word, combinations of ZhI-SHI, etc. The white series automates reading - there can be several different difficulties in a word. This is the so-called intuitive reading - when the child reads the whole word and the whole word is remembered. The child does not yet know how to read, but already reads, relying on his own intuition, visual memory and previously acquired knowledge.

    • Development of reading skills. You can play a variety of games: lay out cards with words according to the domino principle (Angel - Lemon - NosoK, etc.), make sentences from cards with individual words, pulling out strips of paper with tasks, perform them sequentially in order to eventually find the hidden “treasure”, etc. Gradually, the child is offered simple picture books: at first it is just an object and its name, and then sentences and short texts.

    The advantages of the Montessori method are development in several areas at once: general development of intelligence, development of speech, reading and writing skills, fine motor skills, logic. But classes according to the Montessori method require some preparation from an adult and the creation of special conditions - an equipped environment where children can fully communicate, play and learn.

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    The warehouse reading method

    The warehouse method in teaching reading has been known since the time of Leo Tolstoy. It is not by letters and not immediately in whole words, but by warehouses that the baby begins to say: MA-MA, BA-BA. Hence the idea arose that it was easier and more natural for a child to read in warehouses.

    Teaching children using the storage method requires parents to be constantly involved in the process: you need to systematically prepare for classes with the baby, come up with a variety of games so that he does not lose interest, because the learning material is always the same.

    Zaitsev's Cubes

    N.A. Zaitsev, who invented his famous cubes. A warehouse is a fusion of sounds: a consonant with a vowel, a consonant with a soft or hard sign, a separate vowel or consonant. For example, KO-RO-VA, KO-SH-KA and so on. Warehouses in Zaitsev's manual are located on the edges of cardboard cubes. These cubes differ in color, size, and the sound they make (thanks to the filling made of wood or "pieces of iron"). Such a variety helps children to feel the difference between vowels and consonants, voiced and deaf, soft and hard sounds. The set of manuals also includes tables on which all the warehouses of the Russian language are located at once, a book for adults with examples of tasks and a disk with songs-chants.

    Methodist Oksana Oganezova comments: “You can start working with children using Zaitsev's cubes and tables from the age of one. First, children play with cubes: they build houses, roads, towers, trains out of them, listen to how they sound, pay attention to their color. Later, the guys begin to perform more complex tasks: for example, they line up all the cubes where there is a warehouse with the letter “o”, repeat the warehouses after the adult. All this helps the child to catch the patterns of reading. After some time, he begins to read the warehouses on his own, and then quietly moves on to reading whole words.

    This technique requires adults to have a certain preparation and constant involvement: you need to systematically prepare for classes with the baby, constantly invent more and more new games to keep the child's interest (since the material is always the same). Zaitsev's manuals are more suitable for group activities in a development center or kindergarten, since many games have a competitive element. In addition, teachers, as a rule, combine work on blocks with other tasks - they introduce children to individual sounds and letters. If you manage to organize everything correctly, the child studies with pleasure, perceives learning as a game, and by the age of 3-4 masters reading.

    Skladushki by Voskobovich

    Skladushki is a game for learning to read, created by Vyacheslav Voskobovich, the author of about 40 educational aids for children. Children 3-5 years old are introduced to reading in a warehouse system. Warehouses are located on 21 cards in two columns, from which you can build houses for the inhabitants of the city of Skladinsk, about which educational tales and songs are composed. The game comes with a book and a CD.

    The child, together with an adult, examines the drawings on the cards, reads poetry, tells fairy tales and sings. He gradually memorizes warehouse songs, sings them, shows the corresponding warehouses with his finger on the cards. Then, having memorized warehouses, he learns to make words out of them, to read individual words, and then short sentences. The manual can be used in games of varying degrees of difficulty, so it is suitable for both three-year-olds and older preschoolers.

    In addition to "Skladushki" there are other games by Voskobovich: for example, a constructor, from the parts of which you can assemble letters in order to better remember how they look. Or the Chamomile lacing game, where the child needs to thread the string through the holes with letters in the sequence that corresponds to the spelling of a word.

    The technique works most effectively if children study in a small group (4-7 people). The developers claim that by playing for half an hour twice a week, a three-year-old child can learn to read in six months, and six-year-olds in just a month.

    Blocks “I read easily”

    Another modern textbook for warehouse reading is the blocks developed by teacher Evgeny Chaplygin. They are intended for children from three years of age. The “I read easily” technique is based on a gradual, very smooth, development of reading; there are more games than in Zaitsev's program. The set of benefits compared to many other methods is modest: 10 simple wooden cubes, 10 double movable cubes and a “cheat book” for parents, which gives recommendations for conducting classes. Movable cubes connected by platforms can be scrolled to get new warehouses and new words. Children turn them with pleasure, turning the word MAMA into the word MASHA with one turn. The combinations of letters on the cubes are chosen in such a way that 20 words can be made from two dynamic cubes, and as many as 500 words from three.

    In principle, there are no pictures in the manual so as not to confuse the child, because the child can understand the illustration for the word “dad” as “man”, “man”, “uncle” and as a result will remember the word incorrectly. If the child really wants a picture, he can draw it himself in the book for parents.

    Advantages of the method: you do not need to do the manuals yourself, you can do the exercises at home, and no special training is required from an adult.


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